Tough hill ahead for Democrats’ MSA update effort, UCN panel predicts...
Tough hill ahead for Democrats’ MSA update effort, UCN panel predicts
By Jason Huffman
The US Capitol building in Washington, D.C., at night. Credit: f11photo/Shutterstock.com
The US' next attempt to reauthorize the Magnuson Stevens Act (MSA) will likely come after the 2020 election from Democratic members of Congress and have a tough hill to climb, predict Leigh Habegger, executive director of the Seafood Harvesters of America, and Bob Vanasse, the founder of Stoveboat Communications.
"If there's a ‘blue wave’, and Democrats wind up controlling the House [of Representatives], the Senate and the White House, we may see more of an effort to include work on [an MSA] reauthorization bill," Habegger said last week while participating in Undercurrent News’ 90-minute webinar, Seafood and the US Election. "It would probably include language that tries to address the impacts of climate change and maybe some other more sort of environmental conservation goals," she continued. "But I think it's important to note that, if the Democrats take control of the Senate, their majority is going to be pretty slim. So if the MSA were to, by some miracle, come to the floor, it would need Republican support, depending on what happens to the filibuster, and that could prove difficult depending on sort of how green this bill is."
As many as 60.1 million Americans had cast early votes in the 2020 election by early on Monday, already way ahead of the 58.0m who voted early in the 2016 election and with more than a week to go before election day (Nov. 3), according to the US Elections Project. Many pundits have suggested that the large early turnout leans more toward the prospect that Democrats could retake both the White House and upper chamber of Congress while retaining the lower chamber.
Republicans maintain a 53-47 majority in the Senate, but of the 35 Senate races now in play, 23 involve incumbent Republicans trying to defend their seats. The Cook Political Report considers at least seven of those races a tossup with two leaning Democrat.
Undercurrent’s panel of experts addressed just such a prospect last week during our webinar, including especially several wild harvest issues, like MSA reauthorization.
Next MSA update effort likely to come from Dems
MSA, passed in 1976 and named for two bipartisan US lawmakers who championed it, Washington congressional representative Warren Magnuson and Alaska senator Ted Stevens, is is the primary law governing federal marine fisheries management in the US. It prevents overfishing as part of its aim to foster long-term biological and economic sustainability, establishing eight regional councils. The legislation's last significant update was in 2007, when it was reauthorized to establish requirements for annual catch limits, though it was tweaked again in December 2018 by the passage of the Modernizing Recreational Fisheries Management Act, which focused on improvements to recreational fishing data and management of mixed-use fisheries.
Reauthorization is not required to maintain or fund the regulatory structure created by MSA, but the commercial and recreational fishing industries and also conservation groups have both sought to change the rules.
Most recently, in July 2019, Alaska Republican representative Don Young introduced HR 3697, an MSA reauthorization bill that would’ve given the regional councils more flexibility in setting quotas and rebuilding stocks. The bill was referred to the Natural Resources Committee’s Subcommittee on Water, Oceans and Wildlife where it has languished for the rest of the session with just two cosponsors (New Jersey Democrats Jeff Van Drew and Frank Pallone) and no Senate companion.
Young, who is 87 years old, is the longest-serving member of Congress, in office since 1973, and also is credited for being one of the main architects of the original MSA bill some 44 years ago. His previous attempt at reauthorization, HR 200, won a Copyright Notice 222-93 vote in July 2018 on the then Republican-dominated House floor but then died with the 115th Congress after the bill confronted the threat of a veto by former president Barack Obama.
HR 200 was supported by the West Coast Seafood Processors Association, the Southeastern Fisheries Association, the Garden State Seafood Association and the National Marine Manufacturers Association (NMMA).
It also awakened widespread opposition from the likes of Pew Charitable Trusts, the National Resources Defense Council and the Environmental Defense Fund as well as a group of more than 120 US chefs organized by the Monterey Bay Aquarium. They suggested giving the councils more flexibility in effect allowed them to more easily ignore the warnings of their scientific advisors.
The next time MSA reauthorization is attempted it likely will come from the desk of representative Jared Huffman, a four-term Democrat from California's second district, which includes the state's northern coast. He chairs the Natural Resources Committee’s oceans panel and has been leading a regional listening tour since at least July 2019 with the stated intention of introducing another MSA reauthorization bill. The tour has thus far included nine events.
"The nation’s main fisheries law, the Magnuson-Stevens Act, is proof that an emphasis on science and sustainability works," reads a press release about Huffman's efforts. "Through its science-based annual catch limits and other provisions, overfishing has been reduced and more than 45 fish stocks have been rebuilt since 2000."
Vanasse, on Thursday, applauded Huffman for including a diverse group of participants in his meetings, which have moved online since the pandemic. But he agreed with the notion that any future bill, including one from Huffman, could have a hard time in the Senate.
“If it's a Democratic bill, and there's a lot of bells and whistles and promises for their constituents, it will probably not make it through a Republican Senate,” Vanasse said.
Ocean climate bill could morph into executive orders
A more likely candidate than MSA reauthorization for congressional attention after the election, especially if Democrats score sweeping victories, is the "Ocean-Based Climate Solutions Act", HR 8632, a bill introduced last week by US representative Raul Grijalva, chairman of the House Natural Resources Committee, as reported by Undercurrent.
Among numerous changes, Grijalva’s bill, which has 17 cosponsors, all Democrats, would require creating a task force that would have one year to develop a plan and schedule to place 30% of federal waters under conservation by 2030 – a provision known casually as the "30 by 30 plan.”
The bill would also encourage the building of more offshore wind farms by directing the US interior secretary to "seek to permit not less than 12.5 gigawatts of offshore wind energy production on the OCS by Jan. 1, 2025". The goal would double to 25GW by Jan. 1, 2030.
Habegger said her group fully expects the ocean climate bill to be re-introduced in the House during the 117th Congress, get marked up and be voted on, noting "a lot of appetite amongst the environmental community", though, like MSA reauthorization, it could face daunting challenges in the Senate.
"I think the introduction of this bill was largely sort of a messaging bill and sort of a blueprint for what an ocean package might look like in the next Congress. but I think there is recognition amongst many of the co-sponsors, if not all of them, that this bill is going to change before it’s reintroduced in the next Congress,” she said during the webinar.
Vanasse agreed, adding: "It really is putting a stake in the ground to create a laundry list of things that certain groups and members of Congress hope might be addressed in the [Joe] Biden- [Kamala] Harris administration.”
Several aspects of the bill may not have to wait for an upper chamber response, however, Habegger advised, but rather could be introduced without congressional approval by executive order.
It was executive orders from Obama in 2016 that led to the creation of the Northeast Canyons and Seamounts Marine National Monument, including a triangular space about 150 miles southeast of Cape Cod, Massachusetts, in the Atlantic Ocean, and also the Papahānaumokuākea Marine National Monument, located off the coast of Hawaii. And it was an executive order from president Donald Trump, in June, that reversed a portion of Obama's order by restoring commercial fishing in the Atlantic monument, though the current president has yet to deliver on a promise to do the same for the Pacific monument.
The problem with executive orders is they are "subject to pendulum swings", Habegger said.
"I would hope that we would look toward establishing a better process that allows [for] genuine stakeholder participation with feedback and negotiation, rather than trying to kind of wave that top-down one," she said.
Future head of NOAA could come again from NGOs
Another big issue of concern related to the election, for Vanasse, is the potential change of key decisionmakers that typically comes with a new administration and in Congress, including heads of committees and subcommittees.
Vanasse noted, in particular, how Obama chose Jane Lubchenco to serve as administrator of NOAA and undersecretary for oceans and atmosphere at the Department of Commerce. It was a role she maintained from early 2009 until early 2013, during which time she helped to promote catch-share programs, an approach that limits the harvest of a species but allows the sale of quota, as spelled out recently in an article by AL.com.
Lubchenco served for decades as a member of the Environmental Defense Fund’s board of trustees, holding the post of vice chair. The former NOAA administrator, who also was a nearly 40-year professor in the zoology department at Oregon State University, believed, like EDF, that catch-shares held tremendous promise for conservation goals, though those promises "have not really been born out", Vanasse said.
EDF, however, credits Lubchenco, the first woman to serve as NOAA administrator, for helping to boost US fish populations while increasing fishing industry jobs by 23% and fishermen revenues by 30%. Critics have suggested, however, that the implementation of catch share programs resulted in consolidation in the commercial fishing industry, making it more difficult for small operations to survive.
Lubchenco continues to be an active participant in US ocean policy. She was one of the guest speakers in Grijalva's recently called press event to introduce his ocean climate bill.
"We don't really see people coming out of the business community in fisheries and going into government service in these appointed positions," Vanasse said during the webinar. "If vice president Biden is elected, I think it's really important that we work with our coastal Democrats -- many of our coastal communities are represented by Democrats -- and they could help temper the items in the [ocean climate change] bill that was recently introduced.”
Watch the full webinar here: